dreaded Insurance costs... The insurance companies were probably quoting the sat industry a higher loss coverage rate for launches on unproven systems. Your service being less expensive to launch but unproven, was really more expensive when satelight insurance costs were factored into the equation...

Also, I'm sure the satellight industry is very fond of cost vs. benefit decision trees and yours being an unproven system, you probably rated a very high risk of loss assessment because they had no yard stick by which to measure the risk.

A difficult business for a small start-up I'm sure...

Kudos for giving it a shot. I bet you learned a ton.

Scott